Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:25, 11 December 2006

Just wanted to urgently request that everyone do their best to stay on topic here. This page is for talking about Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/guideline and has no other purpose. Complaints about users can be directed to their talk pages. Discussion of the reference desks in general belongs on WT:RD. Thank you all for your consideration in this matter. Friday (talk) 21:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Similiar to talk page?

The point has been made repeatedly that the RD, while in project space, is similiar to a talk page in many ways. So, I wonder what we need here that's not already covered at Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines. Or, at the very least, should the talk page guidelines form a basis for the reference desk guidelines? Friday (talk) 04:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, after reading it twice, that would be a good start. Good idea. -THB 05:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Probably. Looking over this proposal, my first thought is that it should be renamed to "guideline" instead, because it lacks the scope and magnitude used for official policy pages. Second, the main point of this page appears to be a lengthy procedure that needs to be invoked before other people's comments can be removed. While I don't support removing comments in general, I could imagine this being sometimes necessary on a reference desk to avoid nastiness (e.g. WP:RPA and such). At any rate, the lengthy procedure itself seems overly bureaucratic. (Radiant) 13:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

That's been the exact consensus of some experienced editors so far. However, this policy was created in a rather unique way by some well-meaning folks quite unfamiliar with how Misplaced Pages works. Friday (talk) 14:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ummm .. without wanting to getting into a "I'm a more experienced editor than you" contest, it is clear that the balance of experience and familiarity with Misplaced Pages is not as one-sided as Friday presents it.Gandalf61 22:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Such a contest would produce no useful result. Remarks amended. Friday (talk) 22:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The consensus was clearly in favor of inclusion of the rules for deletion: Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Rules_for_deletions. StuRat 21:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No, there wasn't clear consensus. There were 11 editors expressing support and 4 (maybe 5) bringing up significant objections on a proposal on which comments were not solicited from the broader community. It's fine to characterize this as "support from numerous RD regulars" or some such, but it's not consensus. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any actual oppose votes, just some Admins complaining that they don't like us voting at all. But, even if I accepted your 4 claimed oppose votes, that's still 11/15 in favor, or over 73%, which is well within the supermajority guidelines for determining that a consensus exists. StuRat 22:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Per the comment below, "consensus" for adopting guidelines requires more community exposure than these proposals have had. A small clique of editors can agree among themselves all they want, even unanimously, but this is not consensus. In particular, the editors you seem to be most interested in being bound by the deletion procedure are admins and as far as I can tell you have very little agreement from this set of editors (Durova is an admin). The chances that you'd get any admin to enforce guidelines established under this sort of consensus (which is I think what you're trying to achieve) are nearly non-existent. I'm all for making progress on this, but please don't delude yourself that what these votes are doing is establishing consensus. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

All due respect but I think that this is a valid first step. Who is going to develop a proposed policy or guideline for the RD if not the people that are interested in developing it? I thought I saw Durova support efforts here albeit with a heavy heart that it had come to this (or do I have him mixed up with another?) I say let StuRat alone, or better yet, assist him as you see fit, and when/if he/we come up with something then put in the pipeline for more general consensus. For my money, I think that the only new policy/guideline needed for the RD is clarifying the place of OR, and deciding if we are going to have a more formal deletion policy. I think general wikipedia "rules" and the existing RD header covers a lot of the rest. --Justanother 01:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It may not come across this way, but I am attempting to assist StuRat. The first step is for all concerned to understand what this page (Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/guideline) is, which is that it's a proposal for a set of guidelines for the RD with general agreement from some of the regular RD responders. It is not a set of enforceable guidelines adopted through the Misplaced Pages consensus process. For a group of interested people to propose guidelines for the RD seems like a good thing. This group of editors cannot, by themselves, establish something that could be called a guideline. After these are fleshed out and fairly finalized by the working group, comments need to be solicited from the community at large. That's the way the process works. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool. It is clear to me that no small insular group should set policy for the entire project. A year from now a whole new group of editors may be working the Desks and they need to know that the policy has been endorsed by the community not just the few of us. But for now I commend StuRat's effort. Once he has something roughed out he should put it to us for comments/revisions and then to the community through the proper channel. --Justanother 03:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, once completed, I'd like to get final consensus to add a link to these guidelines from the templates at the top of each page. I would bet there is far more consensus on the guidelines we've set up here than there was when the page top templates were originally set up, which is what we are currently using as guidelines. I would suggest we seek a broader consensus of Ref Desk users, as opposed to just Ref Desk volunteers, as the next step after that, although I'm not yet sure how we should solicit their input. StuRat 10:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• There is no such thing as "supermajority guidelines for determining that a consensus exists". Consensus is not a vote, consensus is not a supermajority, and consensus is not 73% support. WP:CON should make this clear. (Radiant) 10:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, there is:

"However, when supermajority voting is used, it should be seen as a process of 'testing' for consensus, rather than reaching consensus...the numbers mentioned as being sufficient to reach supermajority vary from about 60% to over 80% depending upon the decision, with the more critical processes tending to have higher thresholds."

And, if it's your contention that a consensus only exists when there is a 100% agreement on something, then there would never be a consensus on anything in Misplaced Pages. StuRat 12:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• That's not my contention. What I'm saying is that consensus is reached by debate and addressing objections, not by holding a vote and telling the minority to go away. Your quote lacks the context; the numbers you cite refer to RM/AFD/RFA, and the section includes such phrases as "simple vote-counting should never be the key part of the interpretation of a debate" and "there is no consensus about having numerical guidelines". 73% can be considered a supermajority, but it is not a consensus. (Radiant) 12:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This means verifiability and NOR apply to the reference desk, right?

The proposed guideline says that in general, talk page rules apply at the reference desk. If we read Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines, the first sentences under "Central points" reads "A talk page is research for the article, and the policies that apply to articles also apply to talk pages. Research and debate should meet the same standards of verification, neutral point of view and no original research." So, I assume this page as written means that these 3 core policies apply at the reference desk as well. Friday (talk) 23:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I certainly hope not! Sound like we have made a bit of a bad analogy. The discussion on talk pages has as its end product material worthy of inclusion in the main article. We are trying to answer a question as best we can, OR and non-verifiability may play some part. --Justanother 23:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That particular talk page guideline only applies to article talk pages ("A talk page is research for the article..."), not all talk pages, so clearly isn't applicable here. StuRat 21:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'd say that WP:V is meant to apply to articles and talk pages thereof; the refdesk is obviously not an article. That said, people answering questions should in general give answers that are verifiably true. (Radiant) 10:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this not a proposal?

This is a proposal, right? The proposed template got removed, so I put it back. Friday (talk) 17:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, there's no consensus even that such a guideline is a good idea, let alone that everything is decided and we shouldn't make any changes.EricR 17:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yah, the fine print saying not to change it is just plain bizarre. Those of you that are actively driving this- is there some reason that this proposal needs to be treated so differently than is common practice with such things? Friday (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The fine print is a temporary measure, we will make a template for it eventually, but I'm too busy defending against constant attacks on the process to do so now. StuRat 21:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a consensus both to create these guidelines and on each individual point. Therefore, the tag that claims we have yet to reach a consensus is incorrect and should be removed. StuRat 21:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Several people have pointed out that this has gotten nowhere near the kind of input we need to call something a guideline. Call it an essay if you like, but it's definitely not an accepted guideline yet. Friday (talk) 21:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And even more people have said that it is a consensus, so we have a consensus that it's a consensus. StuRat 21:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we may be talking past each other. There's perhaps a consensus among RD regulars that these should be guidelines, but that does not mean there's a community consensus about it. Guidelines require community consensus and that is the "consensus" that is being disputed. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That's circular reasoning, StuRat. Consensus is not a supermajority. (Radiant) 10:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Discourage "Go Google" as an answer

Please see additional discussion of my position here. Personally, I think that just saying "go Google" is somewhat disrespectful to the asker. In general, I feel that it adds little to the answer stream as it could serve as the answer for ANY question. So, I propose that "Go Google it" be outlawed discouraged as a response unless you yourself go google first, refine the search, and then link to a specific useful search. And in that case I still do not consider it an "answer" but at least an effort worth adding to the answer stream. --Justanother 22:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support, linking to a list of search results is a good idea. StuRat 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Depends Bear with me, but I actually quite like Mathiemood's use great sense suggestion, i.e. "don't post smartass questions unless there's a clever smartass question asked first; don't give nonsense answers unless there's a silly question asked; don't give good answers unless there's a good question asked.". It seems to me that this could be expanded into a generally useful rule, which roughly boils down to "respond in kind". If the OP asks a stupid question, a stupid response seems OK to me. Of course, there are limits to this (rude questions should not be responded to with rudeness), but a question that could easily be answered with a trivial google search (implying the OP did NOT even take the time to do this) doesn't warrant anyone taking the time to do the google search for him/her. In this case "google it" seems like a fine answer (OK, maybe something not quite so curt). Insisting a link to a relevant google search be provided, unless the search is somehow unobvious, seems unnecessary. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

While I kind like that Mathiemood bit also just becuase it has that irreverent wikipedia attitude about it I do not think it is appropriate for the RD where people are likely unfamiliar with that self-same attitude. I think that "Go Google" for an obvious "Go Google" situation is unnecessary. If you think the asker should do it themselves then just move on to the next question and leave it alone for someone else that may not agree with you. If need be we can put USE GOOGLE FIRST in bold letters near the top of the RD page but I am sure plenty of people are a bit put off by all the information google gives you. If you want them to google it then take minute and format a search - it is usually just a mtter of copy and paste from their question. No big deal and it may help someone out and that is supposed to be what we are about there. --Justanother 03:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support, C'mon, it's Misplaced Pages. Dfrg.msc 03:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion Policy

I think that the "speedy deletion" goes well beyond things on the level of death threat. Take a look at this string of nonsense I deleted. I would not have been so quick but one bit was designed to upset the OP that was looking for a lost relative (yea, she is in my basement and freaking out). That is, to me, a no-brainer. What I would like to see is a deletion log where I could note my deletion. Comments? --Justanother 03:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This deletion looks entirely appropriate to me. Others have argued that the RD pages are very high traffic, and thus the page history is insufficient. How about if deleted comments are simply replaced with a visible, signed, comment, e.g. comment deleted, see history. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC). Knowing who deleted the comment, and at what time, allows anyone who's interested to find the original comment from the page history quite easily. I'd be willing to create a template for use in such circumstances that could be given a single word argument for the deletion reason (offsensive, off topic, irrelevant, etc.). To use such a thing, you'd just subst it, providing the deletion "reason". -- Rick Block (talk) 03:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Great! I am for a template rather than a log; something like {{RDdelete|inappropriate}}. I don't think we want to get too specific. --Justanother 03:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. A deleted question/deleted answer template looks good to me. Should also be accompanied by a polite note on the editor's talk page explaining why their question/answer was deleted - but the guideline already says this anyway. Gandalf61 09:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I still would argue that "quick deletions" should be limited to posts which qualify as "disruption", which is rather strictly defined (WP:DIS). Also, new users aren't going to know how to find a deleted comment using History, so a link to the specific deletion should be provided for them. StuRat 09:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed addition - not a chat room

This guideline is sorely lacking from the page:

"The reference desk is not a chatroom. Humor for humors sake is not appropriate. If you cannot or will not add informative information, it is inappropriate to write just to be funny. Likewise, the reference desk should not be used by "regulars" as a way to get random questions answered. Unless you are truly unable to find the information you seek on your own, you should not ask questions just to spur jokes, conversation and activity."

I suggest this gets to the underlying dispute in play. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)